Conventionally, a commercial print service to carry out generation of printed matter by request from clients including companies and individuals, is known. In commercial print services, a printing company receives print data as an original copy, designation of print format, the number of copies, delivery date and the like. The service then generates printed matter according to the designations, and delivers the generated printed matter to the client.
In commercial print services, it is necessary for the printing company to complete printing with continuing high quality by the designated delivery date. Especially, in a printing company having a large scale printing center, an operator handles a great number of print orders in parallel using various printing apparatuses and operation computers.
Accordingly, in commercial print services, it is important to generate a printer-use schedule to fully utilize resources, such as various apparatuses, as much as possible. However, it is a heavy burden on the operator to determine the inactive statuses and the abilities of the respective printing apparatuses by manual operation and also to generate a use schedule of printing apparatuses corresponding to the conditions of each order.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 10-240459 proposes a system for generating an efficient printer-use schedule without high burden on an operator. According to the system, regarding each print job, the earliest completion of printing is scheduled by predicting time required for print processing, and the like and estimating the final print completion time. Herein, the terms “completion time” and “ending time” are used synonymous and interchangeably.
However, in the conventional system above, the printing is merely scheduled so that each job can be completed at the earliest possible time. Accordingly, even if there is much time, the operator performs printing in accordance with a determined schedule, and a schedule candidate projecting the operator's intention cannot be presented. That is, the schedule is not always the most desirable for the operator. On the other hand, for the operator, various schedules may be desirable within the range of delivery due dates in accordance with various circumstances such as a printing environment. For example, as long as delivery can be made by a due date, the operator may perform printing at a printing apparatus that is closest to the operator (or a printing apparatus most frequently used by the operator). Otherwise, the operator may perform printing using a single printing apparatus rather than plural printing apparatuses.
As described above, the operator's most desirable schedule cannot be definitively determined. Accordingly, a scheduling system to satisfy the minimum requirement that “printing is completed by the delivery due date” and flexibly meet the operator's requirements without a heavy burden on the operator is desired. However, there is no conventional art to satisfy such requirements.